1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to display apparatus presenting a comparison of analogous components not linked by a definable physical relationship from which one component could be extrapolated from another, and more particularly to apparatus for displaying trends in a process related to financial markets, having a number of analogous components each having a corresponding, variable element.
2. Background Information
The trading of financial instruments such as stocks and bonds has largely become a computer supported operation. Almost all significant trading of securities is accomplished by computer pursuant to the established protocols of the major exchanges. For example, on the New York Stock Exchange, orders for specific securities are entered at a terminal operated by a licensed agent with a "seat" on the exchange. This order is processed through a stock "specialist", a firm that is obligated to manage transactions for a given security. The specialist clears the stock trade at a price reflecting the current supply-demand environment for that security. Upon confirmation of the trade, the parties up-date their respective positions via computer controlled memory. For the most part, the above transaction is accomplished through computer terminals linked together by communication buses or telephone lines.
A different arrangement is provided for certain over the counter trading associations of which NASDAQ "National Association of Securities Dealers" is probably the most prominent. These exchanges avoid the use of specialists in specific stocks and membership does not invoke a seat on an exchange. To the contrary, NASDAQ is established as a computer integrated market of select securities, wherein members trade as agents for their customers and make markets in specific securities themselves. To operate effectively in this environment the members must have a sophisticated communication system that permits entry and up-dating of current stock positions supporting the desired transactions. This invokes the creation and operation of a central on-line database for the securities to be transacted. Members enter into the NASDAQ database via a remote terminal and input their request as more fully described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,032 issued Mar. 22, 1994.
These operations are heavily dependent on appropriately programmed computer systems, for example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,674,044 to Kalmus et al., titled "Automated Securities Trading System". In addition to supporting such transactions, dealers also participate in making markets in individual securities, i.e., the dealer is also the principal and sells the securities out of dealer inventory.
The above operations are performed in real time with the participation of hundreds of competing buyers and sellers forming a highly competitive environment. A central element to success in such a market is the rapid access to vital information on current market conditions in terms of market trends and recent swings to support the ability to enter quickly to establish or withdraw a price. For example, a trend away from a given security is first indicated by a drop of market makers on the inside market. Participants with an early indication of the soaring market are in the best position to profit from it, "or reduce their exposure".
This process has become more complicated with customers communicating with their traders on-line directly through the use of personal computers. In order for such customers to maximize the benefits of their trades it is imperative that they have the ability to assimilate the vital information available on current market conditions in real time. Many of those customers are substantially less sophisticated than their traders and need to have that information presented in a user friendly manner that they can readily adsorb, understand and apply.
In the past, the traders were largely dependent on information supplied directly from the database of transactions in a form selected primarily for ease of communication. Although the on-line data was rich with current market information, the form of this data simply was not optimized to permit rapid extraction and review to support trading; to the contrary, the feed data was mostly devoid of trend information in the market and the traders had to mostly rely on intuition and luck in predicting market shifts.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,297,032, cited above, addressed this issue by providing a multi-tasking workstation that includes seven primary applications each of which is set in a windowed interface for implementing a plurality of security based transactional operations. While the invention provided more information, including trends, to the operators, it presented a different problem in contributing to information overload and the lack of ease of assimilation of the information. The depth of this problem is described more fully in U.S. Pat. No. 4,816,208, entitled "Alarm Management System", issued Mar. 28, 1989. Accordingly, it is an objective of this invention to establish a display format which will communicate multiple facets of information about the markets in a form that is easily absorbed and readily understood. More particularly, it is an object of this invention to provide such a display for identifying trends that is applicable to a number of processes having a plurality of analogous components with a common variable element.